Uganda’s English-language Daily Monitor (with the motto “Truth Everyday”) reporter Andrew Bagala wrote on February 22nd: “An autopsy carried out on freelance TV producer Jeff Rice’s body that was found in a Kampala hotel room, has revealed that he took an overdose of suspected cocaine, police said Wednesday.”

The rest of Bagala’s article gives new details, such as Jeff Rice being found dead on Friday, February 17th, not Sunday, February 19th:

Mr Rice, a freelance producer for American reality TV show Amazing Race run by CBS, a US commercial TV broadcaster, was on Friday found dead, while his colleague, Ms Catherine Fuller was found unconscious in the same room.

Amazing Race is a reality television game show where a team of two competes with other groups to arrive first at a designated destination. It is also aired on NTV on weekends.

Police Spokesman Asuman Mugenyi said yesterday: “Results from the analytical laboratory test indicate that there was an overdose of cocaine, with too much concentration in the stomach.”

Police were by press time yet to identify his nationality. Scene of Crime officers reportedly picked materials they suspect to be contrabands from the room, and have sent the samples to the government analyst for examination.
Mr Mugenyi said Ms Fuller’s health is improving and they are yet to record a statement from her.

According to police, the two hired a room in the hotel on Thursday but on Friday, a hotel worker found the man hanging on a balcony, prompting him to investigate further.

“When they opened the room, they found Ms Fuller lying in coma while Mr Rice was motionless on the balcony. They called police and took Rice to hospital but he was pronounced dead,” Mr Mugenyi said. Ms Fuller was too taken to a hospital in Kololo.

Mr Mugenyi said preliminary investigation pointed at food choking but investigators wondered how it could have happened to both people: “We ordered for another post-mortem which revealed that it was caused by an overdose,” he said.

Illicit drugs are becoming a problem in the country and last year, at least 20 kilogrammes of drugs worth Shs20 billion were destroyed in Kampala.

Police yesterday also refuted allegations that the deceased died of food poisoning or an attack by suspected thugs.

Speaking editorially here at Cryptomundo, there just seems to be something very strange about the unfolding details of this story.

About Loren ColemanLoren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.

Cocaine is a drug that comes almost exclusively from South America. Not Africa. Especially Uganda. Hard to believe. Even if he was a regular user of cocaine, you’d think he would OD in the states where it’s all over the place. If I was part of his family or a personal friend, I would be skeptical of the findings and have my own people conduct tests. This story went from sad to absurd. His poor family. Awful.

I’m honestly not surprised at reporting that some of you consider to be strange or less than believable as the story develops. The reality is that you’re dealing with a foreign press that may not have access like our western press does. The story will often come out in drips and drabs and there will be numerous inconsistencies.

Ironically, its much like a typical cryptid sighting. Guy sees something that looks like a panther or other big cat that shouldn’t or couldn’t live in area X. Takes a picture from a distance. Experts then opine on the picture; one thinks it an extinct panther pantheris, one says its just a bobcat, one says its Mrs. Jones black tabby cat from down the street. The truth is quite often somewhere in the middle. The problem is finding it.

In the sad case of Mr Rice and his assistant I think it was probably an OD. But not on cocaine, given that cocaine isn’t the drug of choice in Eastern Africa. We may find that it *looked* like cocaine but was some phoney drug that Mr Rice bought off the street. Or not. Either way, a creative mind is dead. Sad.

Sad as this is, “father of two young children found dead of a cocaine overdose with his female assistant in Africa” sounds almost as crazy as “father of two young children and his female assistant found dead and near death in a suspected poisoning following a botched gang robbery in Africa.”